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Digitalization and corruption: The moderating effect of ethical behavior of firms
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Souad Chaieb 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
This study contributes to the growing literature on digital governance and anti-corruption by examining the relationship between digitalization and corruption, and assessing whether firms’ ethical behavior moderates this relationship. The sample consists of 114 countries from 2016. Proxies for digitalization are derived from the World Bank’s Digital Adoption Index (DAI) for 2016, while the remaining variables are sourced from the Global Competitiveness Report of the same year. The results reveal a negative and significant association between the overall digitalization score and sub-scores dealing with digitalization adoption by businesses, people, government, and corruption. Additional results show that digitalization is highly effective in reducing corruption for countries characterized by high ethical behavior of firms compared to countries characterized by low ethical behavior of firms. This research advances the literature by demonstrating the dual role of digitalization and firms’ ethical behavior in combating corruption. It provides policymakers with empirical evidence supporting the adoption of digital technologies and the promotion of corporate ethical practices as effective anti-corruption strategies.
Keywords: Digitalization, Corruption, Ethical Behavior of Firms
Authors’ individual contribution: The Author is responsible for all the contributions to the paper according to CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) standards.
Declaration of conflicting interests: The Author declares that there is no conflict of interest.
JEL Classification: M14, Q56
Received: 18.08.2025
Revised: 01.10.2025; 14.10.2025; 03.11.2025
Accepted: 10.11.2025
Published online: 12.11.2025
How to cite this paper: Chaieb, S. (2025). Digitalization and corruption: The moderating effect of ethical behavior of firms. Corporate Ownership & Control, 22(3), 177–184. https://doi.org/10.22495/cocv22i3art14
